jojopus Posted April 17, 2016 Share Posted April 17, 2016 Hi all, After a long absence from nano reefing I am finally getting back into the hobby. As you can see from my profile I was a member way back in the day when Chris first started NR.com. I used to keep a 20 Long nano reef filled with zoanthids, mushrooms and other various softies as well as one or two stony corals. The tank was up and running for about 5 years. I parted it out after having a second child, as I didn't have as much time (and money) to dedicate to the tank. You can see some shots of it in my gallery if you like. I knew I wouldn't be able to resist getting a tank forever although 10 years is a long time to wait. Now that my boys are a lot older I can dedicate some time to a new tank again. Once I decided I wanted to get back into nano reefing the first thing to do was decide on a tank size. While browsing Petsmart one day a little 2.5 gallon guppy breeder caught my eye. I think I liked it because its dimensions where basically the same as a scaled down 20 long. I always liked the look of a long shallow tank. I decided to go for a very minimalist approach and go with live rock and sand as the only filtration and keep up with religious weekly water changes of about 40% for nutrient export and to reintroduce trace elements back into the tank. Besides, my old CPR Bakpak wont fit on that little tank. ;-) The biggest change in the hobby that I have seen is the move towards using LED lighting. There are a lot of options and it is damned near as daunting as it ever was to choose the right light to fit the budget. I decided to go simple at first and found a 20k 16 watt HO Wave Point fixture for a pretty good price. The corals have thus far have done well under that light with good expansion and growth. What I don't like about it is that it is VERY blue. Too blue for my taste. I did a little more research recently and decided to pull the trigger on a high quality full spectrum LED fixture and ended up ordering a Mini Tide from Dave Fason over at nanobox. The fixture should be here Monday. Here are the specs so far Water Parameters: Salinity: 1.025 Temp: 80F Amm: 0 Nitrate: 0 40% weekly water change using Instant Ocean Reef Crystals Equipment: 2.5 gallon guppy breeder tank - 17"x"5x7" Wave Point 16 watt HO LED on a 9 hour photoperiod - nanobox Mini Tide arriving next week Rio 180 Aqueon 25 watt heater - going to pick up a hydor 25 watt, as they are 5 inches shorter Cobalt Aquatics 50 watt neo-therm Current Livestock: 6 lbs Live rock 2 lbs live sand 1 Peppermint shrimp 4 blue leg hermits 1 mithrax crab Xenia Kenya Tree Mushrooms Acanthastrea Seriatapora GSP various hitch hikers - bristleworms, stomatella snails and a serpent star. I plan on adding the following livestock and leaving it alone for a while: Seriatapora GSP Tubipora Here are a few pictures The beginning with live rock added mushroom Kenya Peppermint shrimp Xenia Current full tank shot Link to comment
CD_Scapes Posted April 17, 2016 Share Posted April 17, 2016 You going to add guppies? Or why is it called 2.5 gallon guppy breeder pico Link to comment
Roshan8768 Posted April 17, 2016 Share Posted April 17, 2016 You going to add guppies? Or why is it called 2.5 gallon guppy breeder pico It's just the name for the standard dimensions of the tank (low and long rather than a standard 2.5 gallon tank.) You could put some balloon mollies in there if you wanted lol Link to comment
jojopus Posted April 17, 2016 Author Share Posted April 17, 2016 Correct, it's a tank specifically made for guppy breeding. It has notches in the rim so that glass plates that came with the tank can be inserted to seperate the fry from the adults. Link to comment
jedimasterben Posted April 17, 2016 Share Posted April 17, 2016 You should absolutely drip some guppies to saltwater and be like 'aww yeahh, guppy breeder WITH CORALS'. Link to comment
jojopus Posted April 18, 2016 Author Share Posted April 18, 2016 You maybe on to something there, jedimasterben. I'll give you full credit when I make millions. No money, just credit. Link to comment
jojopus Posted April 18, 2016 Author Share Posted April 18, 2016 I received my nanobox Mini Tide today. Can't wait to get it set up this evening. Will post some pics. Link to comment
jojopus Posted April 23, 2016 Author Share Posted April 23, 2016 Some new shots under the new Nanobox Mini Tide. This light is the Shizz and Dave Fason over at Nanoboxreef is a stand up guy who makes a great product that he stands behind. Link to comment
jojopus Posted April 28, 2016 Author Share Posted April 28, 2016 Got a couple of new additions A pink Seriatapora and some GSP Link to comment
yoshii Posted April 28, 2016 Share Posted April 28, 2016 Welcome back! Oh that blue xenia looks nice! Is it that color in real life? Link to comment
jojopus Posted April 28, 2016 Author Share Posted April 28, 2016 Thanks, Yoshii. The Xenia stalks are tan, but when the light is on them at it's brightest between 12-3 ish, they have a bluish tinge on the inner side of the polyp stalks. Link to comment
jojopus Posted May 4, 2016 Author Share Posted May 4, 2016 One more addition... Toadstool Leather. It's top about the size of a quarter.. Link to comment
jojopus Posted May 28, 2016 Author Share Posted May 28, 2016 Some recent shots. I've been in touch with Phuong over at Oceanbox about a custom AIO tank to replace this one. Just need a couple months to save the necessary funds. It will be a similar style in that it will be long and shallow but with the AIO inserts to help surface skimming and to hide unsightlies like the heater, powerheads and other such nonsense that are cluttering my current build. it will also be 5.5 gallon as opposed to 2.5 so ill be gaining a bit of space to work with. Anyways, here are the pics. They were shot with the cam from an LG GPadF8. Not too bad, but nothing like some of the shots I've seen on here with high quality cameras. Link to comment
teenyreef Posted May 28, 2016 Share Posted May 28, 2016 This is a really cool little tank! I'm almost disappointed that you're upgrading to a bigger aio Phuong does great work, though, and I think the new tank will be beautiful! How's that little toadstool doing? I've thought about getting one in my old pico but always worried it would get too big. Link to comment
jojopus Posted May 31, 2016 Author Share Posted May 31, 2016 Thanks Teenyreef. The tank will be very similar actually. It will still be 18 inches long and 7 inches high but I am increasing the width from 6 inches to 10 to make room for a corner AIO. The tank will also be rimless so it will be much cleaner. The toadstool is doing great. Its showing great polyp extension and has grown in diameter as well. btw, love the 4 gallon picoparadise. bloody amazing. Link to comment
teenyreef Posted May 31, 2016 Share Posted May 31, 2016 Thanks Teenyreef. The tank will be very similar actually. It will still be 18 inches long and 7 inches high but I am increasing the width from 6 inches to 10 to make room for a corner AIO. The tank will also be rimless so it will be much cleaner. The toadstool is doing great. Its showing great polyp extension and has grown in diameter as well. btw, love the 4 gallon picoparadise. bloody amazing. Thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing your new tank, it should be beautiful Link to comment
jojopus Posted June 30, 2016 Author Share Posted June 30, 2016 New inhabitant. Purple and green Acan. Recent developments: Ordered a custom AIO aquarium from Phuong at Oceanbox Designs. It will be a bit of a wait as I'm not the first in line. Based on what I have seen from his previous work I know it will be worth the wait. Link to comment
jojopus Posted July 19, 2016 Author Share Posted July 19, 2016 New FTS at roughly 6 months. Not much has changed except the addition of the Acanthastrea. Its grown 3 new heads since I got it 2 weeks ago. You cant see them in the photo as they are on the back of the plug. Not sure if that's normal, but I feed it Rod's Food original every day. http://www.rodsfood.com/original.html I'm also finally seeing lots of coralline algae growth all over the place. You can also see quite a bit of it on the top of the power head nozzle. The only other new addition is a Cobalt Aquatics 50 watt Neo-Therm heater. This thing is a beast and keeps the water temperature rock solid all the time. The slim profile is much better than the Aqueon I had. I also tried a Hydor but I could never get it to keep the water anything but 83 degrees even when the dial was set 79. Zoomed out FTS showing a little more of the room it's in... Link to comment
JakeJekel37 Posted July 25, 2016 Share Posted July 25, 2016 How are you dealing with evaporation with no lid? Daily top offs? Link to comment
Reefkid88 Posted July 27, 2016 Share Posted July 27, 2016 How's the light upgrade treating you ? Link to comment
jojopus Posted July 28, 2016 Author Share Posted July 28, 2016 How are you dealing with evaporation with no lid? Daily top offs? Yep, not an exact science... I just eyeball it everyday. I'll invest in a micro ATO one of these days. Probably after I upgrade the tank. How's the light upgrade treating you ? Well worth the money I paid for it. All inhabitants seem to be doing well under it. Even the seriatopora is growing and staying nice and pink. Link to comment
jojopus Posted September 1, 2016 Author Share Posted September 1, 2016 Came home a few days ago from work to find my nice little Seriatopora was eaten by someone in the tank. I have seen the Peppermint Shrimp picking at my Acan once or twice so im gonna assume it was him. Once I get the new tank from Phuong ill just remove him and get store credit where I bought him. Might get rid of the Emerald crab as well just to be sure and stick with my original 4 hermits for a CUC. Also having a little issue with my GSP that doesn't seem to have anything to do with predation, will post that in a separate thread to so if I can get some advice.... Link to comment
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